Ministry of Energy of Russia told about incident at Balaklava TPP in Crimea

The roof of the power plant was damaged due to steam emissions, the Russian Ministry said

Russia installed turbines of the German concern Siemens bypassing Western stations at the Balaklava TPP -

The roof of the building of the Balaklava power plant in Sevastopol was damaged by the steam due to an incident during test work in late August, Reuters reported, citing the Ministry of Energy of Russia.

As is known, Russia installed turbines of the German concern Siemens bypassing Western stations at the Balaklava TPP.

The Russian ministry stated that the steam had damaged the membrane covering the roof of the main building of the station. The incident occurred during commissioning and purging the boiler.

According to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, after the incident, the roof was restored, and the construction of the exhaust pipe was changed.

The incident had no effect on the commissioning dates for the station under construction, Russian officials claim.

Russian State Corporation for Space Activities Roscosmos provided satellite images of the Balaklava station dated August 26, 2018, where one can see the damaged roof.

On October 5, the Ministry on the Temporary Occupied Territories of Ukraine informed about the destruction of the roof at the Balaklava TPP. The reason, according to the ministry, was an accident on Siemens turbines installed at the station. The Ministry stressed that the accident occurred due to a violation of engineering and construction standards by TPP personnel, since the German concern did not provide its specialists to launch the equipment.

On October 1, the first power units at the Tavrida and Balaklava TPPs in the annexed Crimea were commissioned. Deputy Minister of Energy of Russia Andrei Cherezov said that commissioning work had been completed at the stations. Commissioning of these TPPs is scheduled for November 2018. Their total capacity would be 940 megawatts.

Four gas turbines of the German concern Siemens, which Russia supplied to the peninsula, despite EU sanctions, are installed on these TPPs. Bypassing the sanctions caused an international scandal, after which the German concern declared that it would no longer allow its equipment to be delivered to the annexed Crimea, and would not provide installation and commissioning services.

Russian engineering company Technopromexport stated that they had installed modernized turbo units in the Crimea, but not Siemens turbines.